Birmingham campaign

==Focus on Birmingham==

===Selective buying campaign===
Modeled on the [[Montgomery bus boycott]], protest actions in Birmingham began in 1962, when students from local colleges arranged for a year of staggered boycotts.  They caused downtown business to decline by as much as 40&nbsp;percent, which attracted attention from Chamber of Commerce president Sidney Smyer, who commented that the "racial incidents have given us a black eye that we'll be a long time trying to forget".<ref>Fairclough, p.&nbsp;113</ref> In response to the boycott, the City Commission of Birmingham punished the black community by withdrawing $45,000 (${{formatnum:{{inflation|US|45000|1962|r=-4}}}} in {{CURRENTYEAR}}) from a surplus-food program used primarily by low-income black families. The result, however, was a black community more motivated to resist.<ref name="Garrow"/>

The SCLC decided that economic pressure on Birmingham businesses would be more effective than pressure on politicians, a lesson learned in Albany as few black citizens were registered to vote in 1962. In the spring of 1963, before Easter, the Birmingham boycott intensified during the second-busiest shopping season of the year. Pastors urged their congregations to avoid shopping in Birmingham stores in the downtown district. For six weeks supporters of the boycott patrolled the downtown area to make sure black shoppers were not patronizing stores that promoted or tolerated segregation. If black shoppers were found in these stores, organizers confronted them and shamed them into participating in the boycott. Shuttlesworth recalled a woman whose $15 hat (${{formatnum:{{inflation|US|15|1962|r=-1}}}} in {{CURRENTYEAR}}) was destroyed by boycott enforcers. Campaign participant Joe Dickson recalled, "We had to go under strict surveillance. We had to tell people, say look: if you go downtown and buy something, you're going to have to answer to us."<ref>
{{cite web
 |url         = http://www.bcri.org/resource_gallery/interview_segments/index.htm#
 |title       = Interview with Joe Dickson
 |date        = 1996-04-15
 |format      = [[QuickTime]]
 |publisher   = Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Online
 |url-status     = dead
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20080101133527/http://www.bcri.org/resource_gallery/interview_segments/index.htm
 |archive-date = 2008-01-01
}}</ref> After several business owners in Birmingham took down "white only" and "colored only" signs, Commissioner Connor told business owners that if they did not obey the segregation ordinances, they would lose their business licenses.<ref>Nunnelley, p.&nbsp;132.</ref><ref>Davis, p. 200.</ref>

===Project C===
[[File:Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham.jpg|thumb|alt=A black and white photograph of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama|The [[16th Street Baptist Church]], headquarters and rendezvous point for the campaign]]

Martin Luther King Jr.'s presence in Birmingham was not welcomed by all in the black community.  A local black attorney complained in ''Time'' that the new city administration did not have enough time to confer with the various groups invested in changing the city's segregation policies.<ref name="time4-63"/> Black hotel owner [[A. G. Gaston]] agreed.<ref name="time4-63"/> A white Jesuit priest assisting in desegregation negotiations attested the "demonstrations [were] poorly timed and misdirected."<ref name="time4-63">
{{cite magazine
|magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]
|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,830112,00.html
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081222082734/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,830112,00.html
|url-status=dead
|archive-date=December 22, 2008
|title=Poorly Timed Protest
|date=1963-04-19
|access-date=2008-01-29}}</ref>

Protest organizers knew they would meet with violence from the Birmingham Police Department and chose a confrontational approach to get the attention of the federal government.<ref name="morris"/> [[Wyatt Tee Walker]], one of the SCLC founders and the executive director from 1960 to 1964, planned the tactics of the direct action protests, specifically targeting Bull Connor's tendency to react to demonstrations with violence: "My theory was that if we mounted a strong nonviolent movement, the opposition would surely do something to attract the media, and in turn induce national sympathy and attention to the everyday segregated circumstance of a person living in the Deep South."<ref name="Bass"/> He headed the planning of what he called Project C, which stood for "confrontation". Organizers believed their [[Telephone tapping|phones were tapped]], so to prevent their plans from being leaked and perhaps influencing the mayoral election, they used code words for demonstrations.<ref>Garrow, (1989) p.&nbsp;175.</ref>

The plan called for direct nonviolent action to attract media attention to "the biggest and baddest city of the South".<ref>Hampton, p.&nbsp;126.</ref> In preparation for the protests, Walker timed the walking distance from the 16th Street Baptist Church, headquarters for the campaign, to the downtown area. He surveyed the segregated lunch counters of department stores, and listed federal buildings as secondary targets should police block the protesters' entrance into primary targets such as stores, libraries, and all-white churches.<ref>Garrow, (1989) pp.&nbsp;176–177.</ref>

====Methods====
The campaign used a variety of nonviolent methods of confrontation, including [[sit-in]]s at libraries and lunch counters, kneel-ins by black visitors at white churches, and a march to the county building to mark the beginning of a voter-registration drive. Most businesses responded by refusing to serve demonstrators.  Some white spectators at a sit-in at a [[F. W. Woolworth Company|Woolworth's]] lunch counter spat upon the participants.<ref>Eskew, p.&nbsp;218.</ref> A few hundred protesters, including jazz musician [[Al Hibbler]], were arrested, although Hibbler was immediately released by Connor.<ref name="newsweek4-22">{{cite journal|title=Integration: Connor and King|journal=[[Newsweek]]|date=1963-04-22|pages=28,&nbsp;33}}</ref>

The SCLC's goals were to fill the jails with protesters to force the city government to negotiate as demonstrations continued. However, not enough people were arrested to affect the functioning of the city and the wisdom of the plans were being questioned in the black community. The editor of ''The Birmingham World'', the city's black newspaper, called the direct actions by the demonstrators "wasteful and worthless", and urged black citizens to use the courts to change the city's racist policies.<ref>Bass, p.&nbsp;105.</ref> Most white residents of Birmingham expressed shock at the demonstrations. White religious leaders denounced King and the other organizers, saying that "a cause should be pressed in the courts and the negotiations among local leaders, and not in the streets".<ref>Wilson, p.&nbsp;94.</ref> Some white Birmingham residents were supportive as the boycott continued. When one black woman entered [[Loveman's of Alabama|Loveman's department store]] to buy her children Easter shoes, a white saleswoman said to her, "Negro, ain't you ashamed of yourself, your people out there on the street getting put in jail and you in here spending money and I'm not going to sell you any, you'll have to go some other place."<ref>Eskew, p.&nbsp;237.</ref> King promised a protest every day until "peaceful equality had been assured" and expressed doubt that the new mayor would ever voluntarily desegregate the city.<ref>Bass, p.&nbsp;16.</ref>

====City reaction====
On April 10, 1963, Bull Connor obtained an [[injunction]] barring the protests and subsequently raised [[bail bond]] for those arrested from $200 to $1,500 (${{formatnum:{{inflation|US|200|1963|r=-3}}}} to ${{formatnum:{{inflation|US|1500|1963|r=-3}}}} in {{CURRENTYEAR}}). Fred Shuttlesworth called the injunction a "flagrant denial of our constitutional rights" and organizers prepared to defy the order.  The decision to ignore the injunction had been made during the planning stage of the campaign.<ref name="Bass_2">Bass, p.&nbsp;108.</ref>  King and the SCLC had obeyed court injunctions in their Albany protests and reasoned that obeying them contributed to the Albany campaign's lack of success.<ref>Eskew, p.&nbsp;238.</ref> In a press release they explained, "We are now confronted with recalcitrant forces in the Deep South that will use the courts to perpetuate the unjust and illegal systems of racial separation".<ref name="Bass_2"/> Incoming mayor [[Albert Boutwell]] called King and the SCLC organizers "strangers" whose only purpose in Birmingham was "to stir inter-racial discord".  Connor promised, "You can rest assured that I will fill the jail full of any persons violating the law as long as I'm at City Hall."<ref>Eskew, p.&nbsp;222.</ref>

The movement organizers found themselves out of money after the amount of required bail was raised. Because King was the major fundraiser, his associates urged him to travel the country to raise bail money for those arrested. He had, however, previously promised to lead the marchers to jail in solidarity, but hesitated as the planned date arrived. Some SCLC members grew frustrated with his indecisiveness. "I have never seen Martin so troubled", one of King's friends later said.<ref>Bass p.&nbsp;109.</ref> After King prayed and reflected alone in his hotel room, he and the campaign leaders decided to defy the injunction and prepared for mass arrests of campaign supporters. To build morale and to recruit volunteers to go to jail, [[Ralph Abernathy]] spoke at a mass meeting of Birmingham's black citizens at the 6th Avenue Baptist Church: "The eyes of the world are on Birmingham tonight. Bobby Kennedy is looking here at Birmingham, the United States Congress is looking at Birmingham. The Department of Justice is looking at Birmingham. Are you ready, are you ready to make the challenge? I am ready to go to jail, are you?"<ref>Eskew, p.&nbsp;221, Bass</ref> With Abernathy, King was among 50 Birmingham residents ranging in age from 15 to 81 years who were arrested on [[Good Friday]], April 12, 1963. It was King's 13th arrest.<ref name="newsweek4-22" />

===Martin Luther King Jr. jailed===
{{main|Letter from Birmingham Jail}}
[[File:Martin Luther King Jr NYWTS 4.jpg|thumb|right|upright|alt=A black and white photograph of Martin Luther King Jr. speaking at a podium with an enlarged cardboard cover of his book ''Why We Can't Wait'' in the background|[[Martin Luther King Jr.]], a year later in 1964, promoting the book ''[[Why We Can't Wait]]'', based on his "Letter from Birmingham Jail"]]

Martin Luther King Jr. was held in the Birmingham jail and was denied a consultation with an attorney from the NAACP without guards present. When historian Jonathan Bass wrote of the incident in 2001, he noted that news of King's incarceration was spread quickly by Wyatt Tee Walker, as planned.  King's supporters sent telegrams about his arrest to the [[White House]]. He could have been released on bail at any time, and jail administrators wished him to be released as soon as possible to avoid the media attention while King was in custody.  However, campaign organizers offered no bail in order "to focus the attention of the media and national public opinion on the Birmingham situation".<ref>Bass, p.&nbsp;115.</ref>

Twenty-four hours after his arrest, King was allowed to see local attorneys from the SCLC. When [[Coretta Scott King]] did not hear from her husband, she called Walker and he suggested that she call President Kennedy directly.<ref>McWhorter, p.&nbsp;353.</ref> Mrs. King was recuperating at home after the birth of their fourth child when she received a call from President Kennedy the Monday after the arrest. The president told her she could expect a call from her husband soon. When Martin Luther King Jr. called his wife, their conversation was brief and guarded; he correctly assumed that his phones were tapped.<ref>Fairclough, p.&nbsp;123.</ref> Several days later, [[Jacqueline Kennedy]] called Coretta Scott King to express her concern for King while he was incarcerated.<ref name="morris"/>

Using scraps of paper given to him by a janitor, notes written on the margins of a newspaper, and later a legal pad given to him by SCLC attorneys, King wrote his essay "[[Letter from Birmingham Jail]]". It responded to eight politically moderate white clergymen who accused King of agitating local residents and not giving the incoming mayor a chance to make any changes. The essay was a culmination of many of King's ideas, which he had touched on in earlier writings.<ref>Bass, pp.&nbsp;116–117.</ref> King's arrest attracted national attention, including that of corporate officers of retail chains with stores in downtown Birmingham. After King's arrest, the chains' profits began to erode. National business owners pressed the Kennedy administration to intervene. King was released on April 20, 1963.